The Good Library Blog

The use of libraries is not confined ot physical visits. If the respondent asks what counts, the definition includes remote online access etc.

I find the regional analysis unhelpful. It owuld be interesting to analyse by library authority, because this could lead to questions about the quality of service provision and its effect (if any) on usage,

Christopher. The online use of public library websites is a trivial figure. The 150 council sites achieve just over 100m hits each year. Google achieves 400m visits in England every day. The idea that somehow the online public library service is either provides quality or value - after all the years and attempts - is laughable. How many times have we been told that there is a 24 hour service- and who, in public terms, has ever heard of it or used it? The DCMS are right not to bother with it.

In terms of online need-to-know access to information, the public library service got left behind six or seven years ago.

Libraries now are about free access to reading material and a place to sit and read or work privately. Let us pray they don't get left behind for those, too. They could easily, if the profession and the management don't sort themselves out.

Lets not get carried away.
Library stats have always been suspect. What is included and not., who uses the libary but doesnt borrow, how many go in just to use face book and so on.

Only yestedray a report said that the most popular leisure activity, culturally, was us of medsia., meaning online, google, computer games, social networking and TV

We are so far behind, still talking about fines and charging for reading clubs, and not challenging the golden opportunity the present crisis could provide for us? Free access to the worlds literature, whether in print or not. Lets see some marketing, some 'Big Society' of libraries promotion!!

How many more times must we go over the same ground?

Our next big campaign may be to make sure we get FREE access to all electronic books, journals and newspapers under an amendment to the Libraries Act. We let them get away with charging for electronically recorded music and films simply because those media appeared after 1964!

Traffic to library websites *is* low. Traffic would be higher (and users would find it convenient) if Google etc could be used to find a book in a library. Very few UK public library catalogues are indexed by Google or other search engines. So a Google (books) search gives me lots of useful information and a dozen or so ways to *buy* the book (and sometimes that is cheaper than a notionally 'free' loan from a library) but the 'find in a library' option rarely leads to success. A few local authorities (and more universities) allow Google etc to index their library collections and make them more easily discovered. I'm not sure why more don't do it. It's not hard or expensive...

Frances. Is it time to get carried away. These figures don't come from the library service. They are part of the independent "Taking part" market research survey which asks people about all kinds of activities. The figures quoted are for any reason for visiting a library. They are entirely consistent with themselves and others sources. The public library service is in terminal decline: not because there is no market for it, but because those who manage it are incapable of addressing the public need. There is no excuse and no defence. Like the Crimean War - we are losing the fight, it is time for the light to be turned on. We need to change the generals

Perkins makes a very good point: libraries need to cater for people who read. This central and basic fact seems to have got lost along the way. Here in Gosport (and I think this is true of Hampshire as a whole), they have been discouraging readers through the systematic running-down of the book collection and elimination of any quiet area for study, while avidly encouraging non-readers. These non-readers DO visit the building - to use Facebook, have a coffee, hire a computer game, go to a hip-hop class or use the services that are an off-shoot of the Town Hall. The library bosses are very pleased because the people visiting now reflect the demographic of Gosport. It seems to have passed them by that this does not make them 'library users', any more than chanting in the stands at a football game makes them 'footballers'.

Amanda. The logic is so simple. Nearly everybody reads in some way. Maybe not fiction or poetry, but travel guides and cookery books- or even just lists of babies names. Nobody can acquire all that they might, of a sudden want to read or look at or find out about. That's what libraries have a reputation for doing, even for those people who don't often use them.

By removing books from libraries we just disappoint people when they come. So gradually people don't bother.

In 2002 both I and the old Audit Commission research department looked at the figures and separately came to the conclusion that unless the strategy changed the library service would have no use for anyone in 20 years. It seems to me that we are right on target for that to happen, even after, how many reviews now -- including the latest one last week-- 30 initiarives in the intervening time. And both you and I could have solved the problem in a fortnight.

Alan Gibbons was in Doncaster yesterday, as campaigners protested to save their community libraries. Something he says on his Blog is so poignant that it has been banging in my head all morning :

[quote] At one point a woman living opposite summed up the whole morning. She had not heard about the possible closure. Staring across the road at her library she said, “But that’s where I borrow my books. What am I supposed to do if it goes?” [end quote]

Think about this woman, and the millions like her, whilst considering what the vandals in government are doing.

Visits to libraries are down and the reason could be that the search and discovery of items is easier now. People are doing it not only by searching the libraries' online catalogues to find and reserve what they want, but also sites such as Amazon to find books and then going to he lib. website reserving them or checking that the service has them. This would mean fewer but more efficient visits to libraries as you can do more at once - including picking up the books you already know you want or are there waiting for you.

Having trashed my CILIP membership and with the benefit of disillusioned perspective seen, oh so terribly clearly, what a waste of time it all was (see People's Front of Judea, Life of Brian); I am profoundly digusted to see, while there are hardly any professional library posts left, people like the gray-faced lipless wonder I saw at a meeting are blandly intent on jacking up the entry criteria while ignoring the basics which differentiate the library "profession" from others. In the end, and I suspect the end will be soon, librarians will cease to exist and all that will be left will be (as per the term Ronald Searle coined) a bunch of robot ant boys who can't see anything but computers and who couldn't catalogue a book to save their worthless lives.

I'm not even that interested in the statistics. Some benefits cannot be defined by league tables. The far-sighted scholar and humanitarian, Jimmy Reid, who just died, got his education at Govan library. That's what libraries are there for. End of.

Over the years, I've jokingly said we should march on London. Well, why don't we? I can guarantee the robot ant boys in CILIP and in Government won't listen otherwise, because they've filled their heads with so many carefully-chosen nonsense phrases, they won't get the message any other way.

Any protest should of course follow Gandhiesque principles of non-violence, but I don't know what else would work, and I certainly don't want yet another consultation.

We don't need no more thought control! It's just another brick in the wall...

In my library authority 2009/10 recorded searches of our online resources numbered over 207,000, that excludes the library catalogue and community information database. The databases available are all selected by professional librarians on the basis that the information they contain is either not indexed by Google, or is only available for a subscription. Access is free. The cost averages out at 11p per search. I don't accept that this is either trivial, or fails to provide quality and value.

If you were to look at my library records over the past fifteen years you would see that my borrowing figures have steadily fallen.
Is this because I dislike libraries? No. It's because my library, on the Walworth Road, which used to a treasure chest of wonderful books, a place I discovered authors who do not feature in the top one hundred at Waterstone's , and haven't for some time, has taken the decision to remove books which are not popular. So the choice of books has become increasingly narrow, and replicates the shelves of Waterstones. The library has also become much noisier, with people routinely answering calls on their mobile 'phones. As the library has Wi-Fi all the seating space is taken up by people using their laptops. The closure of our reference library has been documented n these pages already. Using the library has become less pleasant for those who want to look at and borrow books. There shouldn't be a competition between internet access and books. They complement each other, but each require adequate space and proper funding. we have also lost our librarians. The library appears to be staffed uniquely by library assistants.
Interestingly, a local independent bookshop in Kennington realised that it could not compete with the large chains and the deals they offer, so caters for a readership that does not necessarily want to read the latest Dan Brown offering. It appears to be flourishing, and certainly has good local support.